GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5550, which features a core clock speed of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 400 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5550 is much (about 144%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5550 will be a lot (about 144%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (144%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.